The present invention relates to a sheet conveying apparatus equipped with a sheet tray which couples feed port and discharge port to each other in a continuous surface, more specifically to a configuration of the sheet tray.
Conventionally, there are two types of sheet conveying apparatus. One is a type that a feed tray and a discharge tray are equipped separately, the other is a type that an integral form of sheet tray which couples feed port and discharge port to each other in a continuous surface is equipped.
The sheet conveying apparatus equipped with the separate-type trays has a disadvantage that it is difficult to set or remove the sheet in such case that the discharge tray is positioned above the feed tray or that the feed tray is positioned above the discharge tray.
The sheet conveying apparatus equipped with the integral-type tray has a disadvantage that it is difficult to remove the sheet due to the flatness of the tray when resetting the sheet after jam correction process and when picking up the discharged sheet. When the sheet is long in length, the front end of the discharged sheet touches the rear end of the unfed sheet, which prevents the front end of all discharged sheet from matching each other. In addition, in the case that the sheet is curled upward, the next sheet is prevented from discharging. Therefore, the apparatus has a disadvantage that it is necessary to elongate the integral tray in the conveyance direction and enlarge the difference of the height between the discharge port and the tray, which makes the apparatus large-sized.
The sheet conveying apparatus equipped with the integral-type tray in which the discharge side is lower than the feed side has a further disadvantage that the sheet is liable not to be in the right place when setting the sheet or resetting the sheet in recirculation mode, and that the sheet moves due to the vibration of machine and another external factor at the time of feed operation to induce the sheet feed jam.
Moreover, The sheet conveying apparatus equipped with the integral-type tray has a further disadvantage that, since the distance in the feed side between sheet restricting plates positioned both side of the sheet conveying direction is the same as that in the discharge side, the discharged sheet is not directed to the position between the sheet restricting plates due to the skew or the deviation from the reference position of the discharged sheet.